I Am the Light of This World by Michael Parker

Author:Michael Parker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2022-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Was it the tinted windows of the bus that gave the outskirts of Stovall the air of evacuation? The parking lots of abandoned businesses were ruptured by weed and sapling. Some of the vacant buildings had housed concerns Earl realized had been eclipsed by technology: the old icehouse, the cold storage. He passed Ash Warren’s Feed and Seed, where his mother took him and his brothers to buy overalls, briefly a fad in the early seventies when everyone went to fiddler’s conventions, not for the music. It was flanked by a Walmart and something called Bed Bath & Beyond, which sounded to Earl like the title of a porno.

Annie Peoples was still alive. She was old, though, a wrinkled woman with a wet voice. Earl figured she knew everything about him and what he’d done but she acted as if he was just another customer come to cash a check. He told her his name and she nodded and disappeared for a good five minutes, during which Earl felt stared at, though he never once looked up from the beat green carpet beneath her desk.

“Here it is,” she said, handing him an envelope. Inside was a check for $150,000. Annie Peoples shed her mask to watch him as he looked at the figures typed out by some kind of machine in the line next to his name.

She asked him if he would be wanting to set up a checking or savings account.

“Is that what people do?”

“I don’t get this sort of thing every day,” said Annie Peoples. She wouldn’t look him in the eye, but she wasn’t unkind, exactly. Just distant again. “If you’re planning on staying here, I’d say . . .”

“I’m not,” said Earl, and Annie Peoples looked relieved.

“Your best bet would be to get yourself an account set up when you get to wherever you’re going,” she said. “These days most people use something called a debit card. It’s something you can use at the grocery store, plus you can pay your bills with it.”

Debit sounded too much like “debt” to Earl. He must have looked worried, because Annie Peoples said, “Don’t tell my boss, but I’m old-fashioned when it comes to money. When I was traveling, I used to ask for Traveler’s Checks.”

She explained how Traveler’s Checks worked. Earl didn’t quite follow, but he liked thinking of himself as a traveler.

“Whatever you think best,” said Earl.

“It’s going to take me awhile to get this together,” she said. “Why don’t you come back in a couple of hours.”

“Can you give me some of it right now? I need to make some purchases.”

Annie Peoples studied his prison jeans and sweatshirt. She looked at the bag he was carrying, full of Arthur’s letters and his diplomas. She bent down under her desk and pulled out a pocketbook. Then she handed him fifty dollars.

“I can’t take your money,” said Earl.

“I know you’re good for it. You’re going to need a suitcase to carry all this in. If I were you, I’d go down to the Goodwill.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.